Newspaper Close To Iran’s Leader Defends Russia Against Critics

According to the Wednesday report, Iranian and Egyptian officials sat for talks last week during a visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s to Oman. 

The London-based pan-Arab daily said that the officials agreed on “gradual expansion of Tehran-Cairo relations as well as coordination on the situation in the Gaza Strip and Syria,” noting that the meeting was attended by a high-ranking figure from the delegation accompanying the Egyptian president, with Omani coordination. 

The paper claimed that most of the Egyptian military leadership opposes joining any pact directed against Tehran.

The Egyptian delegation accompanying Sisi in the visit included Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Chief of General Intelligence Abbas Kamel, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala Al-Saeed.

The sources said that the meeting was focused on security in general, adding that "there were many points of agreement between the two parties” on issues of mutual interest.

They said the Iranian and Egyptian officials also agreed to cooperate in the framework of international forums as long as that was possible in order to gradually increase the level of ties. 

Late in June, Egyptian and Iranian intelligence officials also held a meeting, in which Egypt warned Iran not to target Israelis on its territory, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed reported, without disclosing details about the location and participants of the meet.

Ties between Iran and Egypt turned hostile following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Despite some tensions, they share membership in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Developing 8.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and 35 of 100 Senate seats, are up for grabs, with the Democrats currently holding a majority in both houses, 220 against 210 in the House, and a waver-thin 51-50 in the Senate with the vote of the vice-president.

While some Democrats are skeptical of President Joe Biden’s approach to Iran, and not all Republicans backed President Donald Trump in leaving the 2015 nuclear deal, Democrats broadly back the Biden administration’s approach.

While a shift in the composition of Congress would be in line with a common mid-term swing against any administration, analysts are reluctant to make predictions. There are a swathe of contentious issues including rising prices, the Supreme Court and abortion rights, and continuing exposure of Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol Hill riots.

US State Department Spokesman Ned Price reiterated Tuesday there was no specific timeline for talks over the Iran nuclear deal, with Washington’s approach depending on a “technical assessment of Iran’s nuclear program versus non-proliferation benefits” of the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

US-Iran engagement is expected to resume after Biden’s July 13-16 Middle East trip. Challenges reportedly remain in bridging differences over sanctions, including the business operations of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which the US included in 2019 in its list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations.’ Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian again raised Tuesday during a trip to Tehran by his Qatari counterpart, what he said was a US failure to give Tehran assurances that it would not impede Iran’s access to the world economy if the JCPOA were revived and that it would not again quit the agreement.

Awaiting decisions

Following last week’s unsuccessful ‘proximity’ talks between Iran and the US in Qatar, the White House special Iran envoy Rob Malley told National Public Radio Tuesday that “the discussion that really needs to take place now is in Iran.”

But if the US leadership awaits decisions in Tehran, there are also suggestions – including from Sina Azodi of the Atlantic Council – that the Iranian leadership awaits developments in the US, specifically with the mid-term elections.

Having survived nearly four years of US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, Iran is wary of further upsets that would result from the lifting and subsequent reimposition of sanctions. Even short of the 2024 US presidential election, Republicans’ capture of Congress could diminish Tehran’s belief in the advantages of applying the JCPOA and so complicate Biden’s efforts to restore the agreement.

Congressional review

Among Republicans touting a more assertive Congressional role over Iran, Gabriel Noronha, special advisor for Iran 2019-21 under President Donald Trump, argued in a piece in The Hill in late June for strengthening the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), passed 2015 which allowed a 60-day congressional review of any nuclear deal with Iran. Noronha argued that “a new Iran agreement” should “proceed” only with a majority vote in the Senate.

Narounha wrote this would “will help strengthen US negotiators’ position at future talks and help ensure that negotiators do not get so invested in sealing a deal that they cave to the Iranians at the finish line.” It would also “promote the permanency of any future deal.”

In a series of tweets in on July 5, Narounha highlighted various moves in the House of Representatives to strengthen the INARA, including efforts to “close the various loopholes the administration could use to avoid submitting the deal to Congress…”

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian officially welcomed his Qatari counterpart on Wednesday. In a press statement earlier in the day, Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanani said that Al Thani, who is also the deputy prime minister, is scheduled to hold meetings with Amir-Abdollahian and other officials.

Noor News, a website close to the Iranian Supreme Council of National Security (SNSC), also said Al Thani will also hold a meeting with SNSC secretary Ali Shamkhani.

According to Kanani, the Qatari diplomat and his Iranian counterpart will also review bilateral ties, as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest.

Al Thani and Amir-Abdollahian held a phone call late in June after the Tehran-Washington proximity talks hosted by Doha, which ended without any progress.

Brokered by the European Union, the two-day talks in the Qatari capital last week were aimed at breaking a months-long impasse in negotiations to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but ended without any tangible results.

On Sunday, Al Thani also discussed the latest status of Vienna talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Tuesday evening, Amir-Abdollahian and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell held a phone talk that focused on the nuclear agreement, after similar discussions between the Iranian foreign minister and his Omani and French counterparts.

Earlier on Wednesday, Amir-Abdollahian reiterated, “Agreement is possible only based on mutual understanding and interests,” adding that Tehran remains “ready to negotiate a strong and durable agreement.”

Answering a question by Iran International’s correspondent Samira Gharaei and another reporter at the Tuesday briefing about when the US would conclude that there is no hope for success in the nuclear negotiations, State Department spokesman Ned Price said, "The reason it's impossible to put a timeframe is it isn't based on a political decision, but on a technical assessment of Iran's nuclear program versus non-proliferation benefits of the JCPOA."

US officials have said Iran already has accumulated enough enriched uranium to produce a bomb and critics wonder when the current situation would reach a point for the United States and its allies to walk away for the talks and adopt a different approach. The administration in January had said that the last chance for Iran was sometime at the end of February, and then negotiations broke down in March.

About US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley’s remarks earlier in the day on US waiting for an answer from Tehran, he said, “The answer that not only the US is waiting for, but also that our European allies are waiting for is a decision on the part of the Iranian government to fully return to compliance with the JCPOA.”

“It is not clear to us, based on what we have heard from the Iranians indirectly; from our European allies; that they have made that political commitment. There has been a deal on the table that is more or less finalized for several months now,” he added.

Price said, “In recent weeks and recent months, rather than make that political commitment to return to compliance with the JCPOA, Iran has consistently introduced extraneous demands that go beyond the four walls of the JCPOA.” “To introduce anything that goes beyond the narrow confines of the JCPOA suggests a lack of seriousness, a lack of commitment.”

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He highlighted, “We are at a point where a lack of forward momentum, a lack of progress is tantamount to backtracking,” adding that "Current assessment of experts and intelligence community is that the Iran agreement on the table right now is far preferable to where we are now.”

The US has said that that the West made an offer to Iran in December after nine months of talks in Vienna and the ball is in Tehran’s court.

Malley told National Public Radio Tuesday that last week’s Qatar talks between Tehran and Washington had been a waste of time.

Malley said the European Union – whose leading official Enrique Mora acted as a go-between in Qatar – had “put on the table very detailed outlines of what they think a fair outcome would be, and we’ve said we’re prepared to take that deal; the party that has not said yes is Iran.”

Iran’s Hostage Taking Policy

In response to a question about Belgium's controversial treaty on the exchange of convicts with Iran and whether the US is pursuing a different path to handle the Islamic Republic’s hostage policy, Price said the US has a near term goal when it comes to its citizens detained in Iran as well as a long-term goal.

“Our near-term goal is to see to it that those who are at the present moment held unjustly and wrongfully... are released.” The longer-term goal, he said, “is to create and reinforce a norm against this horrific practice; to see to it that the international community speaks with one voice and acts together.” He added that the US is working with allies to lay the ground to achieve this.

Price went on to say the US is monitoring several “egregious cases of Europeans and dual citizens” held in Iran such as Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali, adding that “we echo concerns from UN experts that the situation... is truly horrific.”

Numerous people and groups from around the world have warned about the prisoner exchange treaty between Belgium and Iran, warning Belgian politicians against “giving the green light to state terrorism," and demanding that the bill be abandoned.

The treaty by the Belgian government that parliament is debating for approval could lead to the release of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat serving a 20-year prison sentence in Belgium for “attempted murder and involvement in terrorism” for his role plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris in 2018.

The committee was due to vote on the bill on Tuesday but adjourned the session until Wednesday after nearly four hours of debate. It is likely to be put before the full 150-member chamber on Thursday.

“The European Union – in its role as coordinator – wanted to try one more effort, at least one more effort, and so they invited both delegations (from Iran and US) to meet them in Doha in the hope that Iranians would show something, some willingness to get to yes,” said Malley, who led United States negotiators in Doha, in an NPR interview Tuesday.

Malley said the European Union – whose leading official Enrique Mora acted as a go-between in Qatar – had “put on the table very detailed outlines of what they think a fair outcome would be, and we’ve said we’re prepared to take that deal; the party that has not said yes is Iran.”

Malley said Iranian negotiators “seem at this point not capable of providing answers,” making the indirect, or ‘proximity’, talks “more than a little bit of a wasted occasion.”

“The discussion that really needs to take place right now is not so much between us and Iran, although we're prepared to have that,” Malley said. “It's between Iran and itself…They need to come to a conclusion about whether they are now prepared to come back into compliance with the deal.” He suggested Tehran had not made the “fundamental decision” as to whether they wanted to renew the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018.

New demands

Malley said Iran had in Doha added new demands, though he gave no details, and he gave no deadline over the negotiations, which are expected to resume after President Joe Biden’s mid-July Middle East trip.

Questioned over Iran’s growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Malley said Tehran was “a matter of weeks” from having enough for a bomb. “It would be something that we would know…and we would react quite forcefully, as you can imagine,” he said.

Malley reiterated the Biden administration’s view that “a very dangerous situation” had been created by President Donald Trump leaving the JCPOA in 2018, when the agreement was “working.”

“They’re much closer [now] to having enough fissile material for a bomb,” Malley said. “To our knowledge they have not resumed their weaponization program…but we are of course alarmed, as are our partners, about the progress they’ve made in the enrichment field and that’s why we think getting back to the deal is in our non-proliferation interest. We think it’s in their interests because they’d get sanctions lifted, but of course that’s an assessment that they alone have to make.”

Brokered by the European Union, two-day talks in the Qatari capital aimed at breaking a three-month impasse in negotiations for attaining a mutual return to compliance of the JCPOA, but both sides left disappointed.Tehran blames Washington’s refusal to guarantee Iran’s effective access to world markets, as required by the JCPOA, for lack of progress in the proximity talks, but says agreement is possible if the US is “realistic.”

The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who arranged the Qatar talks on a visit to Tehran June 25-6, tweeted Tuesday, after a phone call with Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, that “decisions are needed now” as the “political space to revive the JCPOA may narrow soon.”